Manually actuatable ice maker



April 26, 1966 J. w. JACOBS 3,247,682

MANUALLY ACTUATABLE ICE MAKER Filed March 27, 1964 5 Sheets-Sheet 1 Fig.

INVENTOR. James W Jacobs BY .[Zm

H/s Afforney A ril 26, 1966 J- w. JACOBS MANUALLY AGTUATABLE ICE MAKER 5mm W T 0 WW m W w m ,H J

Filed March 27, 1964 Fig. 2

A ril 26, 1966 J. w. JACOBS 3,247,682

MANUALLY ACTUATABLE ICE MAKER Filed March 2'7, 1964 5 Sheets-Sheet 3INVENTOR. James W Jacobs .cgm His Afforney United States Patent3,24i7,6$2 MANUALLY ACTUATAIE LE HIE MAKER James W. .Iacobs, Dayton,@hio, assignor to General Motors Qorporation, Detroit, Mich, acorporation of Delaware Filed Mar. 27, 19M, Ser. No. 355,2ti8 9 (Zlaims.(Qt. 62-34d) matic ice makers for inclusion in the freezer compartmentof a refrigerator as a permanent component thereof. This solution is,however, expensive and requires that a considerable portion of a freezercompartment be continuously used for ice making. Furthermore, suchbuiltin ice makers cannot be carried to a more convenient point of useexteriorly of the freezer compartment.

An object of the present invent-ion, therefore, is to eliminate handlingof an ice cube container while extracting frozen ice cubes therefrom bymeans of an economical, portable ice maker unit readily located insupported relationship within a freezer compartment of a refrigeratoryet easily removale therefrom and portable to a point exteriorly of therefrigerator cabinet including means operable to dispense ice cubeswithout handling the ice supporting cube containers therein.

A further object of the present invention is to improve manuallyactuatable ice makers by the provision of a combination, continuous belthaving a plurality of ice cube containing compartments therein extendingcontinuously :across a pair of spaced, rotatable supporting shafts on asupporting portable container having a space therein for storing cubesextracted from the continuous belt.

A still further object of the present invention is to provide animproved manually actuatable ice harvesting de vice including acontinuous belt having a plurality of cube containing compartmentstherein, means for supporting said belt within a portable containerhaving a forwardly located compartment therein for storing cubesextracted from said belt and further including means for selectivelyremoving a portion only of cubes formed in said belt or all of saidcubes into said storage compartment in accordance with the desires of aparticular user.

Yet another object of the present invention is to improve ice productionin the freezer compartment of a refrigerator by the provision of a foodstorage contamer in the freezer compartment and a tray supported thereonfor removal therefrom or sliding movement with the container wherein thetray serves to support a continuous belt ice maker throughout a portionof the extent thereof and includes a forwardly located ice storage spacefor receiving ice cubes extracted from said maker upon opera tion of abelt advancing mechanism including a handle portion accessible forwardlyof the tray at the front edge of the food storage container in thefreezer compartment.

Further objects and advantages of the present invention will be apparentfrom the following description, reference being bad to the accompanyingdrawings wherein a preferred embodiment of the present invention isclearly shown.

In the drawings:

FIGURE 1 is a view in front elevation of a refrigerator 3,247,682Patented Apr. 26, I966 unit having a bottom freezer compartmentincluding the present invention;

FIGURE 2 is an enlarged view in horizontal section taken along the line2-2 of FIGURE =1;

FIGURE 3 is a view in vertical section taken along the line 33 of FIGURE2;

FIGURE 4 is a view in vertical section taken along the line 4-4 ofFIGURE 2;

FIGURE 5 is a view in vertical section taken along the line 55 of FIGURE2; and

FIGURE 6 is a view in perspective of a mechanism for operating the icemaker of. the present invention.

Referring now to the drawings, in FIGURE 1, a domestic refrigeratorapparatus 10 is illustrated including an outer cabinet 12 and an innerliner 14 forming a lower freezing compartment 16 having the accessopening thereto closed by a suitable door closure element 18.

Within the freezing compartment 16 is mounted a lower food storagecontainer 20 representatively shown as being a wire grid work basketmounted :on suitable means for sliding movement into and out of thefreezing compartment 16. Above the lower container 20 is located oneembodiment of the present invention including an upper food storagecontainer :22 representatively illustrated as being a wire basketslidably mounted at either side thereof on the inner side walls of theliner 14 whereby the food storage container 22 can be moved out of thefreezer compartment 16 and inwardly thereof like the bottom basket 20.The upper container 22 is more particularly illustrated as having sidewalls 28, each having a pair of rollers 32 secured thereto slidablysupported in an elongated channel-shaped track 34 secured to theadjacent side wall of the inner liner 14. At the top of the food storagebasket 22 is a continuous large diameter wire reinforcing member 36 thatis bent rearwardly, as best illustrated in FIGURE 4, at a point wherethe front wall of the container 22 is broken away at the right sidethereof, as viewed in FIGURE 1, to form a well or space for receiving aportable manually actuatab-le ice maker unit 38. t

In accordance with certain of the principles of the present invention,the manual ice maker 38 includes a portable container 46 having sidewalls 42, 44, a front wall 46, an upwardly curved rear wall 48 and abottom 50. The Walls are joined at the ends thereof to form an open-topcontainer having an upper flange 52 formed continuously therearound andin the illustrated embodiment of the invention, the flange 52 across therear of the container is removably supported by the reinforcing wire 36of the food storage basket 22 and at the front of the container 40depending projections 54 on the outer surface of the bottom receive abottom forwardly located continuation of the reinforcing wire 36 wherebythe container 40 is supported against tipping on the container 22 and issupported for movement into and out of the freezer compartment 16 alongwith container 22.

Moreover, the ice maker unit 38 of the combination is quickly removablefrom the food storage container 22 to be carried exteriorly thereof toprovide an ice source' remotely of the freezer compartment 16.

With reference to the ice maker 38, in accordance with certainprinciples of the present invention, the container bottom 50 is bentdownwardly at one end thereof to form an .interior space or compartment56 for the storage of ice cubes formed in a continuous belt 58 of asuitable flexible material, for example, a thin walled polyethylenematerial, extending throughout a rearward portion of the interior of thecontainer 40.

The continuous belt 58 has a width substantially equal to the interiorwidth of the container 40 and includes a plurality of ice cubecontainers 60 therein, each including across the full width of thecontainer 40. The continuous belt 58 is supported by a rotatable shaftor spindle 72 extending across the width of the container 40 closelyadjacent the rear wall 48 thereof and the spindle 72 includes aplurality of spaced ring-like projections '74 thereon that fill thespace formed lengthwise between each of the cube compartments 60. Theprojections 74 serve to maintain the belt 58 evenly across the width ofthe spindle 72 so as to prevent binding of the belt during its movementwith respect to the container 40. At either end of the spindle 72 themember is rotatably mounted on the side walls 42, 44 by bearing members76, one being illustrated in detail in FIGURE 5.

Within the container 40 at a point in front of the rear spindle 72 islocated a front spindle 78 having small diameter extensions 80 on theopposite ends thereof and a large diameter hub 82 formed on each endthereof rotatably supported by a bearing element 84 fastened to one orthe other of the side walls 42, 44. Across the width of the spindle 78at spaced locations thereon is a plurality of radially outwardlydirected projections 86 aligned with the bottom 7% of each of the cubecompartments 60 as best illustrated in FIGURE 4. The projections 86 actas cam surfaces for deforming each of the bottoms 70 upwardly asillustrated in FIGURE 4 as the belt passes over the spindle into contactwith the projections 86 thereon.

The belt 58 is advanced so as to cause contact between it and theprojections 86 by a manually actuatable belt advancing mechanism 83 thatis selectively operable to advance the belt 58 so as to cause either asingle row of the cube compartments to pass into engagement with theprojections 86 or to advance all of the rows with respect to the spindle78, depending upon how many cubes are to be extracted therefrom.

More particularly, the mechanism 88 includes a tubular member 90 havinga circular pawl 92 formed on the outer end thereof with the tubularmember 90 being slidably supported on the small diameter end extension80 on one end of the spindle 78. Teeth on the pawl 92 are operativelyarranged with respect to the teeth of a ratchet element 94 slidablysupported on an inwardly directed extension of the tubular element 90for axial movement into engagement with the pawl element 92 under thebiasing action of a compression spring 96 disposed between the outerwall of the hub 82 and the inner surface of the ratchet element 94, asbest illustrated in FIGURE 5. The ratchet element 94 is held againstrotation with respect to the large diameter hub 82 by a plurality ofdowel pins 98 carried therein and outwardly thereof through the ratchetelement 94 into interlocking engagement therewith.

In the illustrated arrangement of the invention, the pawl element 92 isoperatively connected to be rotated with respect to the ratchet 24 bymeans including a pair of arms 100, 102 located in spaced parallelism.on each side of the container 40. The arm 100 has the rearward endthereof fixedly secured to the pawl 92 by screws 103 and a snap ring 105holds the handle on small diameter portion 80. The front end of arm 100is secured to one end of a cross arm member or handle 1% directed acrossthe width of the container 40 in front of the front wall 46 thereof. Theopposite end of member 104 is secured to the front end of the arm 102and the arm 102 has the rearward end thereof secured to a tubularbearing member 166 rotatably mounted on the spindle extension on theopposite end of the spindle 73. A snap ring 167 holds the arm 192against movement of the spindle 78. By virtue of the above-describedarrangement, when the handle 194 is depressed into the position shown indotted lines in FIGURE 3, the teeth on pawl 92 engage the correspondingteeth on the ratchet element 94 whereby the spindle 78 is rotated apredetermined number of degrees. The large diameter hubs 82 on the endthereof advance a corresponding amount and a plurality ofcircumferentially located cross members or braces 108 secured at theopposite ends thereof to the hubs 82 and extending therebetween enterthe belt 58 between the rows of cube containing compartments 69 as bestillustrated in FIGURE 3 to advance the belt 58 therealong with themembers 74 on the rear spindle 72 preventing twisting of the belt as itmoves over the front and rear spindles 72, 78.

By virtue of the above-described arrangement, if it is desired to onlyextract cubes from, say, the forwardmost row of cube compartments in thebelt 58, the handle 104 is depressed down two times to cause the camprojection 86 on the front spindle 78 to pop the bottom wall 79 of thefront row of compartment 60 upwardly and advance the belt 58sufiiciently so the cubes detached from the compartment 60 by theprojections 86 will fall or slide out of the compartment 6t) across theinclined front walls 63 thereof into the storage or cube space 56. Ofcourse, this operation can-be repeated as often as desired to remove agreater number or all of the cubes formed in the compartments 60.

One advantage of the aforementioned embodiment of the present inventionis that the ice maker'component 38 can be moved exteriorly of thefreezer compartment 16 by movement of the food storage tray 22 outwardlythereof and a user of the device merely has to pour Water into the cubeforming compartment 60 and then return the food storage tray 22 inwardlyof the compartment 16 to locate the cube compartments therein. Thisarrangement eliminates spilling of water from conventional cube traysduring placement thereof in a freezer compartment as is typically thecase in many present-day refrigerators.

A further distinct advantage of the above-described arrangement is thatthe unit 38 is removably supported by the food storage container 22 andis thereby easily and quickly moved exteriorly of the freezercompartment 16 as a portable unit to be carried to a point of useexteriorly thereof. By virtue of the arrangement of the belttype icemaker 58 on the container 40, the unit 38 can be handled by the userwithout having to come into contact with the very low temperaturecompartments containing the ice. Yet the ice can be carried to a pointof use and selectively extracted from the belt depending upon thedesires of a particular user of the device. Alternatively, the unit 38can be retained in place on the food storage container 22 and the handle104 can be operated to remove ice cubes therefrom for storage in thespace 56. This stored ice will supplement the cubes in the belt and bereadily available at a remote location without direct handling merely bymoving the unit 38 out of the freezer compartment.

Rear feet 116 on the bottom 50 of the container 40 locate the belt 58 inhorizontal position when the unit 38 is supported exteriorly of thefreezer 16, as, for example, on the upper surface of a kitchen table orthe like, so that if desired, the belt compartments can be filledexteriorly of the refrigerator and moved into the freezer compartmentthereof following filling.

It will be appreciated that by virtue of the improved arrangement, animproved ice maker assembly is provided for association with a removablestorage compartment or container in a freezer compartment being operablethereon and removable therefrom and portable to a point of use withoutrequiring that theuser of the device carry very cold ice containingcompartments to the exterior point of use. The invention further has theadvantage of enabling a user to select a small number or all of thecubes frozen in the unit depending upon his needs and the selection cantake place either while the manually actuatable unit is within thefreezer compartment or when the unit has been moved exteriorly of thefreezer to a more convenient point of use.

While the embodiment of the present invention as herein disclosedconstitutes a preferred form, it is to be understood that other formsmight be adopted.

What is claimed is as follows:

1. In a refrigerator assembly including a freezer compartment thecombination of, a food storage container, means for mounting said foodstorage container for movement into and out of said freezer compartment,an ice making device including an ice container for storing iceextracted therefrom, means on said food storage container for supportingsaid ice container for movement therewith into and out of the freezercompartment, said ice container of said ice making device beingremovably supported on said food storage container and portable to apoint exteriorly of the freezer compartment, said ice making devicefurther including a continuous belt having a plurality of ice cubecompartments formed therein, means on said ice container for supportingsaid continuous belt within a first portion of the interior volume ofsaid ice container, said container including wall means forming a secondinterior volume in said ice container being located at one end of saidcontinuous belt and below said belt, said wall means including a bottomdepressed below said belt for supportingly receiving ice cubes extractedtherefrom.

2. In combination, a portable container having a pair of spaced apartside walls, a front wall, a rear wall and a bottom wall, a continuousbelt having a plurality of ice cube compartments therein, said beltbeing located within a portion of the interior of said container, meansfor mounting said belt for rotation within said portable container,means for ejecting cubes from said belt, said container including aforwardly located downwardly bent bottom forming an interior storagespace located below said belt for supportingly receiving cubes ejectedfrom said belt.

3. In a manually actuatable ice maker assembly for association with thefreezer compartment of a refrigerator the combination of, a portablecontainer including spaced side walls, a rear wall, said side walls,rear wall and front wall forming a top opening over substantially thefull planar extent of said bottom into the interior of said container afront wall and a bottom, a continuous belt having a width substantiallyequal to the width between said spaced apart side walls, said belt beinglocated Within a rearward portion of the interior of said container,means for mounting said belt for rotation with respect to saidcontainer, said belt including a plurality of rows of ice cube formingcompartments, means for driving said belt within said container, meansfor extracting all or a part of the cubes formed in said beltcompartments upon movement thereof, said container bottom being bentdownwardly forwardly of said belt to form a cube receiving and storagespace separate from and extending below the belt containing space insaid'container, said storage space being accessible through the open topof said container when said container is removed exteriorly of thefreezer compartment and carried to a point of use located remotelytherefrom, said plurality of rows of ice cube forming compartments beingdisposed adjacent the top extremities of said walls for filling throughthe top opening of said container.

4. In the combination of claim 3, said means for advancing saidcontinuous belt including a spindle rotatably supported by said sidewalls, means connecting said spindle to said belt, drive means on saidspindle for effecting a stepwise rotation thereof, and operating meansfor actuating said drive means to produce a predetermined desiredmovement of said continuous belt with respect to said spindle forejecting cubes from a portion or all of the cube compartments.

5. In the combination of claim 4, said means for advancing said beltincluding a plurality of circumferentially located members eachextending across the width of said spindle in spaced parallelism withone another, each of said cross members operatively engaging said beltbetween the cube compartments therein for advancing said belt withrespect to said front spindle upon rotation thereof.

6. In the combination of claim 4, said operating means including a pairof spaced apart arms, a handle connecting the forward end on each ofsaid rods, said handle extending across the width of said containerforwardly of the front wall thereon, and means located between therearward end of each of said arms and said drive means for actuationthereof upon movement of said handle verportable therefrom to a pointexteriorly of a freezer compartment, a continuous belt of deformablematerial having a plurality of ice tray compartments therein, each ,ofsaid compartments including inclined front and rear walls, inclined sidewalls and a thin flexible bottom portion, a rearwardly located spindledirected across the width of said container adjacent the rear wallthereof, means for rotatably mounting said rear spindle on said spacedapart side walls, a plurality of guide means spaced across the length ofsaid rearward spindle for guiding said continuous belt withrespect'thereto, a front spindle extending transversely of saidcontainer between the side walls thereof, means secured to said frontspindle for operatively engaging the cube containing compartments insaid belt for driving said belt around said front and rear spindles, andmeans on said front spindle for deforming the bottom portion of the icecube compartments in said belt for ejecting cubes therein forwardly andoutwardly of said belt, said container including a forwardly located icecube containing space for receiving said ejected cubes.

8. In an ice making device for use with a freezer compartment of arefrigerator the combination of, a container having spaced apartparallel side walls, a front wall, a rear wall and a bottom, saidcontainer being removably supportable in a freezer compartment andportable therefrom to a point exteriorly of a freezer compartment, a

continuous belt of deformable material having a plurality of cubecompartments therein, a rearwardly located spindle extendingtransversely of said container adjacent the rear Wall thereof, means forrotatably supporting either end of said spindle on said spaced apartside walls for rotary movement relative thereto, a plurality of spacedapart radial rings on said spindle for guidingly directing saidcontinuous belt around said rear spindle, a forwardly located spindlearranged in spaced parallelism with said rearwardly located spindle,means for rotatably mounting said forward spindle on said spaced apartside walls, protuberances on said forward spindle at spaced pointsthereacross located in surface deforming engagement with the bottom ofthe cube compartments in said continuous belt, said protuberances movingthe bottom of said cube compartments as said continuous belt passes oversaid forwardspindle for extracting cubes in said belt forwardly andoutwardly thereof, said container including a forwardly located cubereceiving space therein for receiving cubes extracted from saidcontinuous belt, and means for rotating said front spindle in a stepwisefashion.

9. In the combination of claim 8, said means for driving said continuousbelt including a spindle rotatably supported by said side walls, meansconnecting said spindle to said belt, a ratchet secured on one end ofsaid spindle for relatively axial movement with respect thereto androtation therewith, a rotatable pawl carried on an outer extension ofsaid spindle in tooth engaging relationship with said ratchet, and meansfor rotating said pawl With respect to said ratchet a predeterminednumber of degrees for producing a desired stepwise movement of saidcontinuous belt, said cube extracting means operable upon such movementfor removing cubes from cube compartments advanced thereacross.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,381,069 8/1945Lutes et al. 62344 X 2,613,123 10/1952 Patten 62-382 X MEYER BERLIN,Primary Examiner.

10 ROBERT A. OLEARY, Examiner.

N. R. WILSON, Assistanl Examiner.

2. IN COMBINATION, A PORTABLE CONTAINER HAVING A PAIR OF SPACED APARTSIDE WALLS, A FRONT WALL, A REAR WALL AND A BOTTOM WALL, A CONTINUOUSBELT HAVING A PLURALITY OF ICE CUBE COMPARTMENT THEREIN, SAID BELT BEINGLOCATED WITHIN A PORTION OF THE INTERIOR OF SAID CONTAINER, MEANS FORMOUNTING SAID BELT FOR ROTATION WITIN SAID PORTABLE CONTAINER, MEANS FOREJECTING CUBES FROM SAID BELT, SAID CONTAINER INCLUDING A FORWARDLYLOCATED DOWNWARDLY BENT BOTTOM FORMING AN INTERIOR STORAGE SPACE LOCATEDBELOW SAID BELT FOR SUPPORTINGLY RECEIVING CUBES EJECTED FROM SAID BELT.